A Grammar of Mombo Songho Dialect

Analyzing a similar distribution in Tommo so Plungian 199xx argues that i and u are surfacerealizations of two pairs of underlying phonemes. Roughly, there are -ATR i and +ATR i ,-ATR u and +ATR u, but these pairs merge on the surface level 2 .This analysis works for Mombo too. Taking examples form (xx4) above we can represent theunderlying forms of stems and their surface realization as shown in (xx1). I use indexes todistinguish between underlying –ATR and + ATR morphemes, 1 for –ATR and 2 for +ATR.(xx1)# bú 1 mbɛ́ → búmbɛ́ ‘crawl’# bú 2 ndé → bú 2 ndé ‘hit, beat’# dí 1 lɛ́ → dílɛ́ ‘exchange, trade’# dí 2 ŋgé → díŋgé ‘bury’In this analysis the majority of stems with initial i or u form two classes with stems with initialɛ/ɔ and e/o. I will refer them as -ATR and +ATR.The resulting list of harmony classes is given in (xxx)(xxx) Vowel harmony classes (verbs)class Initial vowel thematic vowel PFV thematic vowel IMP-ATR ɛ, ɔ, u, i ɛ a+ATR e, o, u, i e oA a e or i aI/U u, i i uHenceforth I will be using this classification in discussing the morphophonology ofderivational and inflectional processes.Polysyllabic verbs:The majority of underived verb stems in Mombo are bisyllabic. Stems with more then twosyllables (typically three) are common in deverbal derivatives such as the causative and thereversive. The majority of synchronically unsegmentable trisyllabic verbal stems mostprobably originate as derivatives of some kind. Final syllables of polysyllabic stems showsignificantly less diversity than that of bisyllables. The table below lists all syllables that occurat the end of polysyllabic stems.(xxx)final syllables number of occurrences in the lexicon 3be 2yÊ: 11 (cf. MPASS -yÊ:)2 Plungian also suggests these might be a relict of a richer vocalism system existed in the Proto-Dogon (Plungian199).3 Data from Mombo lexicon, version March 2011.8